"Wouldn’t it be terrific if the singer just starting out could hear and heed these words from the singer who has made such wise choices in her career that she is still working as hard as ever and her schedule stretches way into the future?" (from http://eyesometric.wordpress.com/category/cardiff/). "I must admit to being shocked when Frau Kasarova recalls racism against singers of Slavic origin but it shows that obstacles and negative attitudes can forge a core of steel in a personality with talent, ambition and, above all, integrity. Thank goodness there are strong women who are wise as well as being superstars and long may these women impart sensible advice to the young."Excerpts from the full interview:

“I had a con­tract for Don Car­los. And Ioan Holen­der, Direct­or of the Vien­na State Opera, res­cued me say­ing: “Ves­se­li­na, if you want a long career, go back to Moz­art and Ros­sini. If you sing dra­mat­ic parts, in 6 years you will be exhaust­ed.”

“Back then, they advised me not to sing too much in the US as voi­ces quick­ly die there. Sing­ers per­form with large orches­tras in vast halls with audi­en­ces of 4,000-5,000 peo­ple. It is good for an art­ist to appear in front of an Amer­i­can audi­ence, but with­in rea­son­a­ble lim­its. I fol­lowed their advice and I wasn’t wrong. I would advise young sing­ers not to hur­ry with dra­mat­ic parts. It is not only about vocal cords endur­ance. Jit­ters, stage fright may break the tie voice-per­son-spir­it­u­al­i­ty. And when art­ists feel fear, they can­not con­tin­ue their way.”

”And besides, dis­ci­pline is also crit­i­cal for sing­ers, their under­stand­ing where their lim­its are, how much they should sing and what and whom with. And that is why I have sur­vived through so many years.”

“The most impor­tant thing is to stay com­plete­ly down to earth. Only few art­ists can cope psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly with the word ‘suc­cess.‘ I do not know how my art is eval­u­at­ed, but I have remained a very down-to-earth and nat­u­ral­ly-behaved per­son.”

“And I have refused to sing Leon­ore in Fidel­io. I have done this to spare my voice. Back then, these parts were not for me.“

HERE is the full interview that Frau Kasarova gave to Europost’s Roslava Kumanova and published in 2011.